Nanotexturing the surface of a substrate can enhance many physical and chemical functions of the substrate as well as devices formed on the nanotextured surface. It has been demonstrated, for example, that a substrate surface can be made superhydrophobic (i.e., water repelling) or superhydrophylic (i.e., water attractive) by texturing the surface with nano-scale elements. Further, it has recently been demonstrated that texturing a surface with micro- or nano-fiber arrays that mimic gecko foot-hair can create an adhesive surface.
For optoelectronic devices, such as solar cells, lasers, photodetectors, optical modulators, light emitting diodes, and the like, substrates having a surface textured with nanowires, microwires, nanocones, nanodomes, and nanopillars have been shown to improve device performance by providing effective broadband antireflection and light-trapping characteristics both at the surface of the devices as well as within constituent layers.
To date, nanotextured surfaces have been produced using many different processes, such as electron-beam lithography, random chemical etching, vapor-liquid solid growth of nanowires or nanopillars, Langmuir-Blodgett deposition, spin coating, and dip coating. While these methods may be suitable for fundamental studies, they do not readily scale to commercially viable production. Typically production fabrication requires the ability to rapidly deposit layers over large area substrates with low-cost. Further, it is desirable in many applications that deposition processes be compatible with the use of flexible substrates.
A fast, inexpensive method for producing a nanotextured surface on any of a variety of large-area substrates, therefore, is highly desirable.